Using Broad Match Keywords

Why Broad Match Keywords Are So Important to Your PPC Campaign

When focusing on your PPC strategy, there are three types of keyword match types that are offered by Google AdWords: exact match, broad match and phrase match. It is important that you understand each type of keyword match type. Without a full understanding of each type of keyword match type you will certainly be wasting a good portion of your PPC budget each month. Your goal with any PPC campaign is to attract high-quality website traffic to your website. This is important due to the fact that a mere quantity of traffic may generate a high volume of traffic but not the quality traffic that will lead to the conversions that you are looking for.

Many people tend to focus on exact match keyword types. However, every person searches for what they are looking for using varied terminology. While exact match keywords may seem flashy and appealing, broad match keywords allow you to cast a wider net for relevant search results. This will allow you to capture a wider variety of searches that may be relevant to the quality traffic that you are seeking to attract to your website.

Let’s start with an overview of broad match keywords. Let’s say that you own a company that sells vintage books. Of course, you would like to capture clicks from people who search for the phrase “vintage books.” However, this highly specific term will leave you in a very competitive space, as any other vintage book store will likely be bidding on the same exact match key phrase. However, by setting that keyword to be broad match, your ad will be opened up to capture a much wider variety of relevant searches. For example, Google will show your ad to people who are looking for broader terms such as “vintage books by female authors,” or “vintage books from 1800.” Your ad will even be shown when Google recognizes synonyms of the original keyword such as “antique books.”

When your PPC campaign is set up, you need to ensure that it is set to broad match. This will allow your ad to be shown to the largest audience possible. We all know that quality clicks are much better than a quantity of non-quality clicks when it comes to any PPC campaign. You still want to ensure that you have some portion of your budgeted allocated for the top exact match key phrases that you want to capture clicks for. However, you will save yourself time and money by not simply bidding on the most popular key phrases. This can quickly and easily drain your PPC budget.

Utilizing broad match as your selected match type is a great way to garner more quality clicks and to extend your PPC budget. You will also want to review a report of the broad match search terms that generated traffic to your website. This will help you see exactly what search terminology is leading to quality traffic. This information will help you to generate fresh content that will help you attract organic site traffic, again extending your PPC budget by gathering that free website traffic.